One and Only
by V.Evergreen
Summary: Three one-shots exploring the lives of Harry, Ron and Hermione and what could have been if they were the only member of the golden trio to survive the war. Chapter 1- Hermione - "Nobody noticed her there until one day she wasn't." Chapter 2- Ron- "When he looked back, he always found it ironic that he was the one to survive." Chapter 2-Harry- "One truth remained; he was alone."
1. Chapter 1

When she did look back on her life directly after the war she found she could remember very little of it. It was all a mad rush of trying to help those who were still alive, rebuilding the world that she had come to love, and trying to avoid reporters and people who just wanted for her to talk about it all.

She just didn't want to talk about it, so she never did. How did one put into words how they had lost everything in a single day? When she had woken up on the morning of the battle it was with the war looming over her, casting ugly shadows where there should be none; but that bearable. She had learned to live with the threat of death lurking in the background wherever she went and she managed to deal with it. Because she wasn't alone. Whenever she woke up in that godforsaken tent in the middle of nowhere she would know that the likelihood was that no new progress would be made that day and while it was frustrating she could deal with it. And the only reason she could deal with it was for the two people who were always by her side.

Harry and Ron.

Even in the moments when their bickering escalated into full blown arguments she could never stay angry with them; the effort was too much to compete with her love for them both. They had been together for what felt like a lifetime but in reality was only six years and over those years they had become her family more than anyone else. She loved her parents but in the wartime they had moved to the back of her mind, she reasoned with herself it was because she had sent them away and that they were safe, but in reality she knew why it was; while she loved them sometimes her friends felt more like her family than her kin. It was because of this that when Harry and Ron both became lost to the greater good she felt like she would never be completely at home again.

She was right.

Years later when everything had gained some semblance of normality she had tried to reach out. To reconnect with the people around her. The first were her parents. At first they had been angry for her deception and her measures in keeping them safe, but the anger was only a guise to hide the fear. She tried living with them again but within the month she was back on her own. She had so wanted to stay but she could see that she was bad for her parents now. They couldn't understand what she had been through,

_(when her mother had seen how thin and haggard she had become Hermione pretended she couldn't see the tears in her eyes. Her father's eyes filled with an unbearable sadness each time he moved to touch her and she flinched violently away from him with fear always predominant on her face. The day she left was the day that her mother had seen the scars from the battle and the torture. She had begged her to stop talking when she told her how they had come to be while her father silently encouraged her to speak. The memories of her torture in Malfoy Manner were painful but nothing compared to how she felt now. The hardest part was when she remembered who had saved her)_

and she couldn't remember what it was like to feel whole. She left and they cried but Hermione knew that this was a mercy on her part.

The next person she tried to love again was Ginny. She could relate to her partly since Harry and Ron had meant almost as much to her as they did to Hermione. Except it was different now. She was welcomed to the Burrow as though she were family and maybe she used to be. But not anymore.

Ginny and George had suffered the most out of the war though the family was by no means whole. She found herself unable to stay long and was saying her goodbyes before three months had yet to pass. When she left George was the only one to look at her with understanding. He knew what it was like to know that you were never going to be whole again.

_(she gradually lost contact with the Weasley family as time progressed save for the annual Christmas letters and even they became terse and generic. She tried to stay in touch with Ginny but she had moved on. Ginny never said but her patience grew thin for her once-friend who had never stopped morning. She got married and had children, she told Hermione that it was what Harry would have wanted and Hermione knew that she was right. She never blamed Ginny for moving on, but she could never quite look in the eye when she did)_

It was then that she realised that this was the way life was going to be. She had realised that on her own no one wanted her. She had been too damaged to ever function properly again so she focussed on just managing to get by.

She threw herself into her work and flew through the ranks. She ignored the whispers about her, what harm could malicious words do to her now? There was no reason to let them upset her, after all there would be no one there to comfort her. But none the less people whispered; she never did figure out what they said but it bothered her little. She knew they only talked because they were intimidated her. Her focus unnerved most of them and truth be told it unnerved her sometimes. She immersed herself in each project and learned every aspect of it that there was to know, it was second nature to her now. She did this until she ran herself into the ground, there used to be people dragging her away from the books and the knowledge, making her laugh and smile and relax. Not anymore. People passed her by, never stopping her and never really noticing that she was there, until one day she wasn't.

_(It was an ordinary day forty years after the war when she walked into her flat once more. She didn't have time to fully close the door behind her when she felt the tightness in her chest and the pain shooting through her left arm. She toppled to the ground and moved no more. She was found the next day by the postman as he walked past and saw the door still open, he looked in and panicked at what he saw. When the story was picked up by the Daily Prophet they painted her as an old hero who worked tirelessly all her life. They never said how alone she was or how not a single person volunteered to write the obituary. Her friends didn't know her any longer and it would be an insult to her memory to pretend that they did. _

_They never mentioned how she died with a smile on her face)_

….

A/N- Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it, if you did please review. Harry and Ron will be the next chapters so I hope you stay tuned!

All the best,

VE


	2. Chapter 2

Ron always thought the fact that he was the only one out of the three of them to survive was ironic. When he had mused about it in the in the little time he had once possessed he had thought that he would be the first to go, he didn't have Harry's fighter spirit or Hermione's incredible intelligence. He was just Ron. But here he was, the very last to leave this world behind him.

He hardly talked to anyone those first few months after the war. He couldn't find it in himself to even pretend to be halfway alright. Every one in his house was grieving but he was the worst of them all. He thought maybe that George might be on par with him but they didn't talk; both of them too lost in their own worlds of pain.

_(he knew that Ginny was a wreck too. She had loved Harry and Hermione had been one of her closest friends but it wasn't the same. Ron had loved Hermione but he hadn't even had the nerve to tell her until it was too late, it haunted him that she had never known. He had kissed her and she had to have known he liked her but she had never known how much he truly loved her. _

_It got to the point where he couldn't look at Ginny any more. She wept for Harry at the drop of a hat but Ron almost envied her. Harry was like a brother to him while Ginny hadn't spent almost everyday her life with him since they were both eleven. He was jealous of the fact that she hadn't known him as well as he did, because she couldn't miss him as much. He knew this was bullshit but he clung to it anyway)_

After a respectful amount of time Kingsley approached Ron and offered him the chance to join the auror program. He didn't see it as a job opportunity, he saw it as a way to get even. He almost said yes unthinkingly but the words choked him. Being an auror was Harry's dream. He had wanted it too but somehow it didn't feel right anymore.

In the end he ended up running the joke shop with George. It was mind numbing with all of its bright colours and strange noises after so long on the run where colour and noise could give away your position and get you killed.

It was nice to work all day and not have to think. He would work all day and then go back to the Burrow. He saw his family gradually heal around him as they moved on. There were still wounds but now there were scars as well. George didn't flinch as noticeably when he looked in a mirror, his mum managed to say Harry's name without having to excuse herself from the room and Ginny found one of Hermione's books and managed to put it away before the tears threatened to fall. It wasn't much but it was better than they had been.

The only problem was Ron. He saw his family piecing themselves back together and he desperately wanted to be able to but he couldn't,

_(He still saw them wherever he went. He would see a flash of bushy hair out of the corner of his sight or catch a glimpse of green eyes when someone walked past him. He tried to stay out of crowded areas just for the fact that every time he caught sight of someone who shared the same colour hair, or dressed like them or even spoke like them his heart would rise only to be crushed once more. It was like they had died all over again._

_He never told anyone but he could hear them in his head sometimes. It wasn't like they talked to him, it was more like old memories playing on a loop that would repeat over and over again until he broke down)_

He moved out of the Burrow two years after the war. He still worked at the shop and saw his family but it was a relief to get out of that house. He would wander around it sometimes and just remember _everything_. All of his time spent with both of them. He would walk into his room and remember the times when he and Harry would just sit up there talking about everything from Quidditch to whether or not they thought the next defence teacher would be an absolute nutter. He would walk downstairs and see the chair at the table where Hermione would sit eating her breakfast and reading at the same time.

It was just a relief to be in a place where he didn't have to put on a face for his family. He was pretty sure that they could all see through it anyway but he still felt the need to try. He carried on working at the shop and somewhere along the line it became a permanent job not just something he could do to stop thinking.

He just got on with his life. He never married and he never had children but he tried to be there for his family the best he could. He never missed a single Sunday roast or birthday even when his family began to grow as his siblings had children. He was always Uncle Ron, the one who could be depended on and it warmed his heart a little to think that in some small way he was important to their lives. The illusion was quick to shatter when he would go back to his empty and cold house. He figured it didn't matter so much; he would just go through his life being the one in the background who was always there if you so needed him to be. Never crucial and never centre stage. But always there.

_(He was in his eighties when he felt his life start to slip away, he didn't tell anyone, there wasn't really anyone to tell, he just let it happen. He had lived a long life, and he had tried to make sure that family was at the centre of it, at least the family he had left. He still after all these years thought of Harry and Hermione as his family. They had stayed with him his entire life, young, strong and vibrant; not to be touched by the outside world. _

_As he lay in bed for what he knew were the final moments of his life he focussed on the family members that were gathered around him. Ginny, with her once flaming hair now a steely grey, Bill, even older than he was with his scars contrasting oddly with the lines set into his skin and Teddy Lupin with whom he had tried to love even though he knew Harry would have done a better job. _

_He couldn't remember how he had gotten to be this old. He could still remember with the clarity of his youth, the feeling of soaring through the skies with the wind in his hair as he flew with Harry, he could hear him calling out to him as he flew on ahead and he caught the sound of Hermione laughing below safely on the ground, he could see-_

_Ginny let out a muffled sob as her brother's breathing stopped and his heart stilled. She could hardly see through her tears as Bill reached out and closed Ron's eyes. Her brother looked more at peace than she had seen him for too many years, his hands folded across his chest, eyes closed and with the barest hint of a smile playing across his lips)_

…..

A/N- I hope you like it! If you did please leave a review and I'll be sure to get the next one up soon, thank you!

VE


	3. Chapter 3

When people asked Harry about his life just after the war many expected vague answers and anecdotes and that was what they got. But that wasn't what he remembered. Harry could remember what felt like every second of the aftermath of the war. It felt like time had slowed down especially, just to torture him with the pain of knowing that he had come in a full circle; that once again, he was alone. It felt like every time he managed to push one person from his mind another would take their place. He could see the faces of the dead, all staring at him with their accusing eyes,

Tonks. The mother who never got to know her son.

Lupin. The man who had so looked forward to being a father.

Fred. Once full of laughter now just as empty as his twin.

Colin Creevy. The boy who had only wanted to do right.

Ron.

Hermione.

No one sentence immediately came to mind when the last two names came into mind, it was more like six years worth of memories playing through his mind unrelentingly.

Ron. Hermione. Ron. Hermione. Ron. Hermione.

He stayed in the Burrow for a few weeks after the war. No one talked to him and he didn't seek anyone out. Deep down in a place that Harry wouldn't even acknowledge he knew that they didn't blame him. They were just too busy being wrapped up in their own worlds of misery. It was times these when his mind would conspire against him.

_Ron. Hermione. Ron. Hermione. Ron. Hermione._

The memories would play over and over again until he couldn't take it anymore. He would simply leave the Burrow and walk. He would walk for miles with his only destination a peaceful state of mind. None of the Weasley's stopped him when they saw him heading out. They didn't need to; he always came back.

_(the nights were the worst. There wasn't a night go by where he didn't wake up in a cold sweat and shaking from half remembered dreams. In his dreams he would see their bodies laid out just as they had been in the Great Hall. Pale, cold and unmoving. When he had first seen them he had physically fallen. His knees had given out from under him and it was only Neville's hands as they hauled him up that kept him from falling to the floor and laying there until he too died._

_The dream came every night and would leave him a wreck by the end of it. The only consolation was his horror seemed to deep for screaming so none of the others knew, he would suffer in silence. Of course, they did know really but this way he could at least pretend. It was because of this that it came as a great shock when he was pulled from his dream one night by a soft hand stroking the hair from his forehead. He opened his eyes and without his glasses, recognised the blurry figure of Ginny hovering over him with nothing but understanding and compassion in her gaze)_

His days became a writhing mass of funerals and speeches, none of which he wanted to attend. He did so out of respect for the fallen and he hoped that it would be enough to assuage people's curiosity about him. It wasn't. The public wanted to know everything about him whereas he wanted nothing to do with them. He took to wearing his invisibility cloak out of the house most days and he revelled in the anonymity it afforded him. Soon it became too much for him even with his frequent invisible excursions. He moved back into Grimmauld Place and practically boarded himself in. He only ever left to see his young Godson or Ginny.

_(the first time he had seen young Teddy Lupin he had cried. So had Andromeda and so had Teddy in the end but as he held the baby in his arms, untouched by the ugliness of war he vowed to do anything and everything in his power to give this child the best life anyone could ever have. He visited frequently and helped Andromeda in any way he could, after all he wasn't the only one to have lost family in the war._

_As for Ginny she came and saw him often. They didn't always talk, sometimes they sat and ate or just curled up on the sofa. Harry occasionally got the feeling that she used him as an escape from her family, but he wasn't complaining, he used her as an escape from the convoluted mess of his life)_

They never put it into words but Ginny and Harry were together once more. They didn't announce it or tell anyone but they didn't deny it either. They were still broken but when Harry was with Ginny it was like he could be himself- just Harry. There was no need to hide whatever he felt because she had felt it too.

Four years after the war Harry proposed and to his everlasting shock and joy Ginny said yes with tears over flowing from her eyes as she laughed. It was a long engagement but neither felt the need to hurry. They were married three years later and for the first time in years he was truly happy.

_(even after he and Ginny had settled down into a happily married life he still broke down occasionally. In hindsight the career choice of being an auror probably wasn't the most wise choice he could have made. Sometimes in the heat of battle he could feel the panic at the edge his mind bubbling but that might have been what made him so good at his job. Good though he may be, it didn't stop the memories of voices calling out above shouts and the sounds of a war being waged against children. As it was he well liked and respected though no one ever tried to get to close to him. In truth he scared them. He always looked slightly off balance no matter how hard he tried to hide it. More than once people had seen him smile and look over his shoulder to find that there was no one there to share the moment with. They like him, but they kept their distance and for that he was glad)_

Soon his life with Ginny grew and they found themselves with three children. Harry could honestly say that he loved his children more than any other person he had met in his whole life. His love for Ginny had grown and matured but his love for his children had sprung into being instantaneously and irrevocably. For the first time he could understand his parents sacrifice for him.

When Ginny had found out that they were to have a child they had both begun searching for names. Tentatively, Ginny had suggested Ron for a boy or Hermione for a girl. For all of twenty seconds it had seemed like a good idea to Harry; a way to honour those who had once been his everything. But then the reality set in. It felt too much like trying to replace them and he couldn't even contemplate such a thing. It would be too painful to call their names everyday and not see them. He could tell Ginny understood and although they did name their children after dead hero's somehow the names of his parents seemed less personal to him than those of his dead friends.

_(Harry lived a long life. He had poured his heart and soul into his family and made sure that they had had everything they could ever need. Love and attention were given freely and his family was home to Harry._

_They lived through the years, a shining beacon of hope to war ravaged souls like himself, spreading laughter and light to the most dark of places. It filled him with an indescribable warmth to think of how he had seen his family grow and flourish under his care and he knew that spending his life with them was his greatest achievement._

_By the time that he began to feel a tiredness pervading his bones he knew that it was his time. His hair was thin and completely white and his frame stooped with age. He was ready. He was laid out on his bed surrounded by his wife, children and grandchildren. He looked at each face and the love that shone there and found himself at peace though even after all of these years he still looked for the two faces that were never there. He could feel death creeping up to him but he wasn't afraid, it was more like anticipation. A half remembered phrase made its way to Harry, "to the organised mind death is but the next great adventure", for the life of him he couldn't place it but he had had plenty of time to organise his mind. He was ready._

_Harry departed this world as an equal and with a smile on his face.)_

…

A/N- Thank you for reading and I hoped you liked it! This is the end so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it and I would love to know what you thought in a review!-VE


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